Two Out Of Three Earns Them A D-minus

December 05, 2001|By Michele Jacklin Michele Jacklin is The Courant's political columnist. Her column appears every Wednesday and Sunday. To leave her a comment, please call 860-241-3163 .

Having completed two of the three tasks it was assigned, the legislature's Reapportionment Commission is hereby given a grade of D-minus for its 10 months of work.

That may seem unduly harsh. But in failing to draft a new congressional map, the panel let down the residents of Connecticut, six U.S. House members and the state constitution. The failure to act amounted to a colossal abdication of responsibility.

At midnight Friday, the clock ran out on the panel's nine members. They walked away from the bargaining table, declared a stalemate and left it to the state Supreme Court to downsize Connecticut's congressional districts from six to five.

With their backs to the wall, a position lawmakers increasingly find themselves in, the redistricting talks degenerated into a swap meet, or as Republican State Chairman Chris DePino called it, ``the minutiae of tossing cities back and forth.''

So much for community of interest -- the long-cherished tradition of congregating towns with similar concerns, problems and profiles.

In the end, the debate boiled down to whether Democrats could string together enough small and mid-sized cities to give U.S. Rep. James H. Maloney a fighting chance against Republican Nancy L. Johnson in a newly configured 5th District. Conversely, Republicans were bent on cobbling together a rock-solid district for Johnson, the dean of the delegation and potentially a future chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

In addition, Republicans wanted to turn the new western Connecticut district into a GOP stronghold, arguing it's only fair to have two Democratic-leaning districts (1st and 3rd), two GOP-leaning districts (4th and 5th) and one jump ball (2nd). Democrats saw the political equation differently. With 200,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state, Democrats argued that, at the very least, there should be two districts in their column (1st and 3rd), one in the Republican column (4th) and two jump balls (2nd and 5th).

A few days after breaking off the talks, however, Republicans decided the compromise plan that Democrats put on the table Friday night might not have been so bad after all. On Monday, they petitioned the court to give them a second bite of the apple and, a day later, Democrats were ready to second the motion. The two sides agreed to ask the court for additional time to iron out their differences.

It was a gracious, though curious, move by Democrats, compounding the tactical error they made at the outset. They should have left the 5th and 6th districts largely intact and sought to dismantle the 2nd. A legitimate case could have been made that the newest member of the delegation -- freshman Republican Rob Simmons -- should be the one in jeopardy.

Despite the assertions of Simmons and a few myopic business leaders, there is no community of interest binding the 54 towns in eastern Connecticut. What do Waterford and Woodstock have in common other than an uppercase W? Stafford and Stonington? Mansfield and Mystic?

The 2nd District has survived the redrawing of political boundaries every 10 years not because of historical, commercial or demographic links, but because of inertia and convenience.

But Democrats allowed themselves to be bullied by the Republicans, Simmons and a few hundred vocal residents at a hearing in Norwich. Maybe if an equal number of exercised citizens had shown up at hearings in New Britain, Danbury and Waterbury, the 5th and 6th districts would have been left unscathed.

But that's water under the bridge. The map of Connecticut, sans congressional boundaries, has been handed over to the Supreme Court, which has until Feb. 15 to darken the lines.

Conspiracists had suggested that judicial intervention was precisely the scenario that Democrats and Republicans wanted all along. With the court wielding the carving knife, none of the members of Congress could have blamed the commission for whatever political hash was served up. Now that legislators are asking for an extension, that theory has been debunked.

Still, political hash is what Connecticut may get. No one knows how the court will respond to the commission's request. The seven justices could do the carving themselves; they could remand the plan to the commission; they could choose between the parties' last best offers; or they could appoint a special master to complete the task.

In any event, it's back to the drawing board -- for whoever is holding the pencil.